Friday, December 2, 2011

Like Magic!

Golly! I sure do love hemstitching!

On a rare Friday off, though I scheduled a mandatory team meeting at 2 that I can't miss, I have given myself a gift: Do what I want and nothing I don't want to do. Well, minus that whole drive to and from Walland, but it's a beautiful day and I can have the sun roof open, and then I can do a little Christmas shopping.
Anyway, what I wanted to do is weave. I fixed the mistakes in the too-small-for-shawls warp and threaded the "Lover's Knot" pattern that I found on http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/, a wonderful site with monographs, old guild newsletters and a whole lot more. I hemstitched, which is so much more fun with 16/2 tencel than 8/2 cotton! Oh, wait. I thought sarcasm would print in blue. Guess not.

Once I finished hemstitching, which takes longer when you wander around every few minutes looking for anything else to do, I started weaving the pattern. Really, is there anything more magical than the way the pattern develops in overshot? And the pattern looks even better in this photo than real life! I'm using 16/2 silver tencel in this scarf, but I've also sampled with some lavender 10/2 cotton and some 6/2 black bamboo. Not sure about the black; I think it's too heavy in color and weight for the warp, but the lavender is lovely, and will come next. Maybe by the time I get to the third--there are 9 yards of warp, so 3 scarves--I'll have another option, maybe some finer black tencel or bamboo.
And then I'll look for beads for the fringe, using Susan's methods of beading on fringe from her blog, weeverwoman.blogspot.com/. She makes beautiful scarves, with amazing beading on them. Her work is such an inspiration! Makes me want more shafts on my looms! But with so many more overshot patterns to try, I'll be busy enough for now.

I love that! I'm glad you clarified the sarcasm, because I was thinking - what's wrong with 8/2? My next sampler is overshot. I've just been introduced to it and I can't wait to start. Darn holiday keeps getting in the way.